Sacramental Super Sunday Commercials
Every civilization has a sacred rite; ours is Super Sunday. The game is given to the masses as a cheap entertainment, and the amount the players make just for showing up ($29,000 for members of the losing team) is always a ballyhooed fact. It gives it a sense of occasion.
But the significance of the event has nothing to do with football, of course, and everything to do with television. During the Super Bowl media seizure, a handful of the biggest advertisers debut their new campaigns, or, alternatively, broadcast a single-run ad. These are precious, once-in-a-lifetime happenings, on par with Elvis sightings.
That said, here are the miracles of Super Sunday advertising:
St. Budweiser Beats the Dead Clydesdale.
The Budweiser frogs, as anyone with a television has known for weeks, were to be executed by the lizard who hates them, during the first commercial timeout of the game (one wonders if Bud had the courtesy to play the ad over the Qualcomm Stadium clock, so that the penitents in San Diego could join the sacrifice). While the first ad featuring the vindictive lizard had a sort of anti-advertising charm the first time through, the series of spots during the game depicting the assault didn't live up the hype. Much like Budweiser.
St. Information Converts the Ill-Used.
In this ad for AT&T everything, a gaggle of young girls interrogates our young heroine for the name of the boy upon whom her eyes rest favorably. Once they have the info, they immediately go to press, spreading the rumor via internet, fax, cell phone and pager (which all of their 11-year-old media consumer friends own, for some reason). Yes, 11 is a hurtful age. Tender hearts are easily cut into ribbons by a vicious gesture or foul deed, as the ad skillfully portrays; and the spread of high-tech media devices makes it so much more playful and fun. But wait! This isn't a dystopian nightmare! As the little girl returns home, her mother mentions that the boy in question is cute. The girl runs into her room close to tears - "You know about it too?!" But then, through divine intervention (made possible by AT&T and the back-stabbing 6th grade), little Bobby Whoever is there in her room, cute as a tack. Damaging information? BAH!
St. Gabriel Strangles A Cat.
The only ad we'll never see again is the oppressive Fed Ex commercial that showed a test pattern and played the most irritating humming alarm ever dreamed of by the scum who created the Emergency Broadcast System. Scrolling across the middle of the test pattern is the script: the sponsor paid $1.3 million for this 30-second time during the Super Bowl, and didn't get the tape to the network because, of course, the idiot didn't use Federal Express. A company that approves an ad like this deserves what it gets. Damn Fed Ex to hell!
St. Thomas Aquinas Proves Again That He's Smarter Than Thou.
Continental tire attempted an anti-ad that would work in any other circumstances than those of its premiere. The ad features a dweeb with a vaguely German accent and a photo of a tire. He tells us Continental isn't cheap about making tires, so they have to be about making ads. He stabs the photo onto his pencil and spins it to demonstrate what the tire does, which is a nice cheap gag. But I knew they spent over a million buck to air this ad just this one time. Besides, isn't it obvious that the chief expense for advertisers isn't the film, but the air time?
St. Mary Magdalen Shows Some Leg.
The only clever ad of the day was NBC's promo for the sitcom "Working." It plays on the Nike "I can" spots with Dilbertesque fatalism. "I can... photocopy my face." "I can... be intimidated." I always wonder about this breed of office humor, whether it is benign coping or hopeless abjection. That ambiguity is surely the main reason Scott Adams is rich.
Go in peace, and buy stuff.
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